If you were watching the by turns corny, head-scratching, and acid-trippy opening ceremony of the London Olympics last night, you may have seen Irish actor Kenneth Branagh declaiming lines from Shakespeare (while in a Victorian morning coat, which was sort of odd but it was that kind of night). The lines...

Choosing this is slightly disingenuous, because it is the only work I know by this 15th-century Welsh lady poet about whom little is known.
The name of the poem is “Cywydd y Cedor.” Because of translation issues, it is known by several names in English, including “The Female Genitals,...

Doors
By Carl Sandburg
An open door says, “Come in.”
A shut door says, “Who are you?”
Shadows and ghosts go through shut doors.
If a door is shut and you want it shut,
why open it?
If a door is open and you want it open,
why shut it?
Doors forget but only doors know what it is
doors forget.
Source:...

via my friend Lola @ Oh no, my sainted aunt!
Questions About Angels
made available at The Poetry Foundation
Of all the questions you might want to ask
about angels, the only one you ever hear
is how many can dance on the head of a pin.
No curiosity about how they pass the eternal time
besides circling...

The Teacher
I was twenty-six the first time I held
a human heart in my hand.
It was sixty-four and heavier than I expected,
its chambers slack;
and I was stupidly surprised
at how cold it was.
It was the middle of the third week
before I could look at her face,
before I could spend...

In honor of the London suburb of Slough, where I was earlier this week. Betjeman’s 1937 poem is a great protest against the ugliness of modern industrialization and bad urban planning. Ricky Gervais did a hilarious reading—with satirical commentary—as David Brent in the original version...